by Joss Wood
Quinn laughed and dropped a hard kiss on her mouth. “Talking about strange... My mother left a snotty voice message saying they’d expected us to visit by now, to explain why we eloped, why there wasn’t a wedding, why they had to read about my marriage in the press.”
Cal frowned. “You didn’t tell them? Quinn! It’s been nearly three months. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that, since I haven’t spoken to my parents or my brothers for years, I didn’t need to tell them anything,” Quinn replied, defensive.
“Why haven’t you spoken to them?” Cal asked, swinging her legs so she sat on the edge of the bed. “Did you have another fight?”
Cal remembered their last major dustup—they’d objected to his career as a professional hockey player and he’d told them he no longer gave a damn what they thought—and after that fight, she knew his relationship with his parents and, consequently, his brothers had cooled.
“Nope. We just faded away.” Quinn shrugged. “Anyway, they suggested that we have supper. To be honest, I think they want to see you, not me.”
“Why? Your parents never had much time for me.”
“They never had much time for anybody who didn’t have an IQ of 150 or above, so don’t take it personally.” Quinn pushed a hand through his hair. “And I have no idea what’s behind the invite. I gave up trying to figure out my family a long time ago.”
“Do you want to go?”
Quinn gave her his are-you-mad look and Cal wrinkled her nose at him. “I think we should go.”
Her mom was dead and her father had nearly died; family was important!
“God.” He sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “I am quite certain I was swapped at birth. You’re going to be stubborn about this, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“I’ll see when we can go over,” Quinn capitulated and she smiled.
Cal shook her head. “Let’s not eat there. You know your mother burns water. Why don’t you invite them here and I’ll cook?”
“You can’t cook either,” Quinn pointed out. “And grilled cheese sandwiches don’t count.”
“Hey, I happen to be a very good cook...now.”
“Then why haven’t you cooked for me, wife?”
Cal mock-scowled at him. “Because we’re frequently not home to eat. And when we are, you bring food home. Or we eat at Mac’s or Kade’s.”
“When did you learn to cook?” he asked, obviously curious.
Cal dropped her head and her hair hid her face. Cooking had been another of Toby’s efforts to turn her into the perfect wife. “Toby sent me on a couple of cooking courses.” And that was all she was saying on that subject!
Before he could ask her to elaborate, Cal stood up and walked over to the en suite bathroom, putting a little extra sway in her hips, hoping to move him off the topic. His eyes, as she’d hoped, moved to her chest and then headed south.
“I’m going to take a shower,” Cal told him. “Call your folks, your brothers, invite them to dinner. It’ll be fine.”
“Ack. That’s too much wishful thinking for so early in the morning,” Quinn grumbled.
“Right now, I’m also wishfully thinking about coffee,” Cal said from the doorway of the bathroom. “Feel free to make my wishes come true.”
Quinn grinned at her. “I thought I did, last night.”
Yeah, he had and did. Every night.
Cal shut the bathroom door behind her, caught a glance of the happy-looking woman in the mirror and did a double take. She barely recognized her bright eyes, her naughty smile, the sheer contentment on her face. Don’t do this, Cal, she warned herself.
Don’t set yourself up for a fall.
Quinn was temporary, their marriage was temporary—it was all so very temporary. Being with Quinn, being happy like this was a wonderful treat.
But it wasn’t real life and it would end.
Happiness always did.
Eight
When Quinn returned from walking his family back to the promenade, he stepped into the main salon and dropped his head to bang it against the glass door.
“I think you’re right. I think you were swapped at birth,” Cal said, standing next to the dining table and looking at the remains of the meal she’d spent hours preparing. The filet of beef was virtually untouched, the blueberry cheesecake was intact and there was still half a dish of rosemary-and-garlic-roasted potatoes. “Could they not have told you they are now all vegetarians? That three of them are on a raw food diet?”
Quinn stepped away from the door. “On the plus side, they did polish off the steamed vegetables.”
“And a bottle of ten-year-old whiskey and three bottles of your best red wine.” Cal sniffed, thoroughly annoyed.
It had been over twelve years since she’d shared any time with the Rayne family, but Cal soon remembered why she and Quinn had spent most of her childhood hanging out at her house. His relatives were, quite simply, hard work and after an interminable evening Cal understood Quinn’s need to keep his distance.
Why couldn’t they see the man she did? The smart, funny, successful man who would love them, spoil them, if they gave him half the chance. He didn’t need to be a genius. Being Quinn—loyal, funny, responsible and mentally tough—should be enough.
“Jeez, why did they bother to come to dinner?” Cal demanded, stacking the dirty dinner plates and taking them to the kitchen. “They spent most of the time talking to each other and barely spoke to us.”
Quinn picked up the dirty wineglasses and placed them on the counter next to the dishwasher. “Ah, but they did express their reservations about our marriage and Ben did tell me that I am flaunting my wealth because I’m living on a yacht.”
“Ben is still the idiot I remember.” Cal rolled her eyes.
Quinn did another trip to clear the dining table and after placing some serving dishes in the dishwasher, he leaned against a counter and frowned. “Jack was more reserved than normal.”
Cal bit the inside of her lip and wondered whether she should express her opinion of his brother’s relationship with his long-term partner. Maybe she should just let sleeping dogs lie...
“He and Rob want to get married,” Quinn told her, pouring wine into two clean glasses. Cal took the glass he held out to her and smiled her thanks. Jack and Rob marrying would be a very bad idea, especially for Jack.
“Cal? Have you got something you want to share with me?”
Dammit. The man had a master’s degree in reading her body language. Cal slowly turned around, still not sure whether she had a right to say anything.
“Spit it out, Red,” Quinn commanded.
She’d never told anyone about the reality of her marriage to Toby and if she didn’t shut down this conversation, she’d end up telling Quinn her dirty little secret.
This wasn’t a conversation she could dip her toe into and back out of when the water got a bit chilly. This was sink or swim. She didn’t want to do either.
Why couldn’t she keep her big mouth shut around Quinn? Surely, by now, she would’ve learned to? “Cal, talk to me.”
“I think Jack is being abused, possibly physically, definitely verbally by Rob,” Cal quietly stated.
“What?”
“You heard me,” Cal replied, crossing her arms.
“Why do you think that?” Quinn asked. Cal could see he was caught between denial and disbelief. “I thought Rob was the most reasonable, rational person at the table tonight. Apart from you and me, naturally.”
Cal tapped her finger against her wineglass. “He’s charming, I agree, and he made an effort to talk to us, to you,” Cal replied. “He was civil and we needed civil tonight to balance out the crazy.”
“Then why would you think he’s beating u
p on my brother?” Quinn asked, genuinely confused. “Either physically or verbally?”
Cal looked around the kitchen and sighed. She didn’t have the energy to tidy up, but, unfortunately, the kitchen elves were on strike. And her pride wouldn’t let her leave it for Quinn’s cleaning lady to sort out in the morning. She put down her glass and started to rinse the dirty plates so she could place them in the dishwasher.
“I agree that nothing about Rob’s behavior suggests that he’s an abuser, but everything about Jack’s behavior does,” Cal said, keeping her voice low. God, why had she even opened up this can of rotten worms?
She was okay. She could still walk away from this subject. She would walk away if it got too intense. Talking about abuse made her heart race and it made her remember why she never wanted to be embroiled in a relationship again.
You’re in a relationship with Quinn...
No, she wasn’t, not really. They were legally married, friends outside the bedroom and lovers within it.
She’d only married Quinn to sever the last cords tying her and Toby together. But talking about abuse felt like she was surrendering a little of the confidence she’d fought so hard to regain. She was overreacting. This was Quinn! The only person she could trust with this information. He was, first and most importantly, her friend. Her oldest, and best, friend.
Quinn flipped open the dishwasher and held out his hand for the wet plate. Quinn still looked expectant and Cal knew he wasn’t waiting for another dish. “Jack looked at Rob every time he voiced his opinion, wanting his approval. He served Rob his food, kept asking if he needed anything. Agreed with everything he said.”
“Jack’s always been needy, a fusser,” Quinn stated.
“This goes deeper than that. He was nervous, constantly looking for Rob’s approval.”
“Isn’t it natural to want approval from the people we love and who love us?” Quinn asked, confused.
Cal sighed. She understood that it was difficult to accept that his tall brother was being abused by the much shorter, less bulky Rob, but she also knew that abuse had nothing to with size. Like Toby, Rob needed to have the upper hand, needed to be in control, and he knew exactly what buttons to push to get Jack to dance to his tune.
“Beneath the facade of charm, I heard Rob’s patronizing condescension, the I’m-not-entirely-sure-why-I-put-up-with-him attitude. I wanted to lean across the table and smack his smarmy face,” Cal said. “Trust me, Rob’s a snake.”
“You don’t have to like him, Red, but it’s a big jump from being a jerk to being an abuser.”
“It’s not as far as you think,” Cal muttered, not entirely under her breath.
Back off, Cal. Now!
Quinn frowned at her. “Sorry, what?”
Cal shook her head and waved her words away. “Trust me on this, Quinn. Your brother is in an abusive relationship.” She closed the dishwasher and, hoping to move off the subject, she nodded toward the cheesecake. “Do you want a piece?”
Quinn laid a hand on his heart and tapped his chest. “God, yes. It looks fantastic.”
Cal opened the drawer to take out a knife. Cal cut two slices and placed them on a plate. He took the fork she held out and dug in.
“Poor Ben. I saw him eyeing the filet. The guy is jonesing for a steak and fries.” Cal scooped up her cheesecake and slipped it into her mouth, the tart berries a perfect complement to the creamy filling and the sweet base. “Damn, that’s good.”
“I would never have believed that you made this if I hadn’t seen you whipping it up earlier,” Quinn admitted, going back for a bigger forkful.
“I’m a girl of many talents.”
“You so are.” Quinn looked at her and her stomach did that swirly, jumpy, bats-on-speed spin it always did when Quinn looked at her that way.
Quinn took another bite of cheesecake and frowned at the rest of the dirty dishes. “Leave the mess. Let’s take the cheesecake and wine up onto the deck.”
Cal followed Quinn up the stairs as he walked toward the large, square ottomans next to the Jacuzzi. Sitting down, he patted the cushion next to him. Cal sat, tucking her feet under her bottom and resting her glass on her knee.
“Jack’s an idiot if he’s being abused,” Quinn stated as he put the plates on the coffee table in front of them. “Seriously, one slap and he should lay charges.”
He made it sound so easy, Cal thought. So black and white. He had no idea how words could be twisted and used as weapons, how cruel loved ones could really be. Abusers could win acting awards, easily able to play the victim, always stating that they couldn’t understand why they were so badly treated when they loved so much. Few people understood what it felt like to live with the fear, the crazy scenarios, the accusations and the recriminations.
By the time Toby started slapping her, her confidence had been smashed to smithereens. Regaining her sense of worth and finding herself again had been a battle of epic proportions.
“I just don’t understand how someone can put up with that crap,” Quinn said, leaning back and lifting a forkful of cheesecake to his mouth. “It doesn’t make sense to me.”
It never made sense to anyone until they were walking through the sludge of an abusive relationship, not sure how they got into this swamp and having no way to get out. And to Quinn, who was so self-reliant and confident in who and what he was, it was an anathema.
Quinn waved his fork in her direction. “So, tell me why you think Rob is abusing Jack.”
Cal looked into her wineglass, thinking furiously. This was a watershed moment and she had to decide whether to own it. She either had to tell Quinn about her rotten marriage and her abusive husband or she had to shove it back in the corner and pretend it had never happened. She either had to trust him with all of the truth or nothing at all.
Quinn would...what? Hit her? Disparage her? Mock her? Of course he wouldn’t. Quinn wasn’t that type of man. Hadn’t she told him that she knew him? And she did. Quinn wouldn’t lose his temper. He’d control his reaction and she’d be safe.
Of course he would—this was Quinn.
Besides, telling Quinn wasn’t about how he’d react but about whether she had the strength to do this, the courage to face her past. She’d grown so much in the past five years and she was a new Cal, a better version of the girl she’d been before she’d met Toby.
Telling somebody, telling Quinn, meant freedom. She would be shining a light on her dark past.
Releasing her pain would heal her. It would give her closure.
Didn’t she deserve that? Cal finally acknowledged that maybe she did.
Her decision made, Cal lifted her eyes. “Before I go into that, I need to tell you something...and it’s linked, in a roundabout way, to your question about Jack.”
Quinn looked puzzled. “Okay.”
“I asked you to marry me for a reason.”
Quinn frowned, confused. “Yeah, I needed to look better in the press and you needed some distance from the social swirl.”
Cal shook her head. “All true, but there was another reason, one I haven’t told you.”
“Okay, that sounds ominous. What?”
Cal explained about the inheritance, told him how she needed to be free of Toby. “I don’t need his money. My mom left me a trust fund and I stand to inherit a bundle from my dad.”
Quinn looked astounded. “You walked away from $200 million?”
“I couldn’t take his money. It was...” Cal hesitated. “It was tainted. I’ll explain why, but let me go back to my comment about Rob’s abuse of Jack.” Cal sucked in a deep breath, looking for her courage. “The thing is, Quinn, I can recognize controlling behavior from a hundred yards away. I was married to a man who controlled everything I did, everything I said.”
Quinn cocked his head. It would take a moment
for the truth to sink in—it always did.
“I was Toby’s possession, just like Jack is Rob’s,” Cal continued.
Cal watched as his protective instincts kicked in and anger jumped into his eyes. “Go on,” he said, his jaw tight.
“In hindsight, there were subtle hints of his controlling streak when we were engaged, but I thought he was just trying to protect me. After we married it got progressively worse.”
Quinn bounded to his feet and loomed over her, his hands on his hips and his face suffused with anger. Cal felt a touch of panic, but she pushed the feeling away and pulled in a deep breath. This was Quinn. Quinn would never hurt her.
“Why the hell did you stay with him? Why didn’t you divorce him? Why didn’t you walk?”
He made it sound so simple; yet, at the time, it hadn’t been.
Quinn looked down at her, now bewildered as well as furious. “Why didn’t you call me? Jesus, Cal, why the hell didn’t you tell me about this? I would’ve—”
“You would’ve punched him and caused a scene,” Cal told him, her voice firm. “Then he would’ve pressed charges and you’d have ended up in jail, convicted for aggravated assault. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t allow you to destroy your career.”
“My career isn’t that fragile.”
Toby had ruined so much that she hadn’t been prepared to take the chance.
Quinn pushed his fingertips into his forehead, upset and angry about something that had happened years ago. Cal reminded herself that he wasn’t angry with her but at what had happened to her. He had such a good heart and he was incredibly protective of the people he allowed into his life. She loved that about him. She loved him...
Cal felt fear roll over her, hot and terrifying. She couldn’t love Quinn—that wasn’t part of the deal. Anything other than being part time lovers and full time friends wasn’t part of the plan. She couldn’t love Quinn. It wasn’t safe to love Quinn.
She couldn’t think of that now. Maybe she wouldn’t think about it again at all.
She had to tell him the rest of her story or she never would.
